CARBONATE OF LIME. 129 
pounds to the square rod, and that seems little 
enough, and yet it means eight tons to the acre. 
That amount I would advise when the material can 
be had cheap enough to make it possible, and even 
more. It costs? Yes, but it pays. Take an acre of 
old, sour land that is not worth cultivating in its 
natural state and put on it eight tons of ground 
limestone. Put the cost at $2.50 per ton. That 
means an expense for liming of $20 per acre. Then 
that land will be fit to sow alfalfa upon, as soon as 
it has been drained and enriched. Mind, we do not 
claim that lime is a manure. The lime makes it 
possible to grow crops that make manure. With 
alfalfa growing well upon that acre it ought to yield 
at least four tons each year, and there is a thousand 
pounds of hay for each ton of raw limestone rock 
you have used. Cannot afford it? Can you afford 
not to do it? 
But with much less ground limestone on some 
soils alfalfa has come where it had failed repeatedly 
before. Among a mass of similar letters I find this 
significant one from Iowa: 
“After repeated failures with alfalfa in this county (Scott, 
Iowa), I have acted on your advice and applied 3,000 pounds of 
raw limestone dust with the seeding in August of 1907. This acre, 
diagonally across the three different varieties, produced a uni- 
form luxuriant growth of alfalfa at the three cuttings, besides a 
growth of one foot not cut. I estimate each cutting at two tons 
per acre. The rest of the field showed a patchy growth ranging 
from two inches to 18”, very unsatisfactory. I am convinced that 
you are right when you say that raw limestone will assure suc- 
cess with alfalfa.” 
I tried for several vears to help a farmer in east- 
ern Pennsylvania grow alfalfa, but each effort was 
